A Possible Riddle-Source ("Time")

So, most of the riddles that make up Bilbo and Gollum's famous exchange have long since had their source(s) plausibly identified. But one exception to this general rule has been the "Time" riddle. Various possible sources have been suggested, but none quite seemed to give that ah-ha! feel of a compelling match. I did come across another possibility recently (while reading the discussion of THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE in Boenig's book on C. S. L.) that I thought I'd add to the mix. In the description of an allegorical depiction of Old Age, the author (Guillaume de Lorris), writes

Time, who goes away night and day, without rest

and without interruption, who parts from us and

steals away so quickly, seems to us to be always

stopped at one place, but he never stops there at

all. He never ceases passing away, so that no man,

even if you ask learned clerks, can tell you what

time it is that is present, for before he had thought,

three moments would already have passed. Time, 

who cannot stay, but always goes without return-

ing, like water which is always descending, never

returning a drop backward; Time, before whom 

nothing endures, not iron nor anything however

hard, for Time destroys and devours everything;

Time, who changes everything, who makes all grow

and nourishes all, who uses all and causes it to rot;

Time, who made our fathers old, who ages kings

and emperors and will age us all, unless Death

cuts us off; Time, who has it in his power to age 

all mankind . . . 

--THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, tr. Charles Dahlerg (1983), p. 35-36, about lines 360 to 385?

Here's how Chaucer rendered the passage in his own (Middle English) translation:

The Tyme, that passeth nyght and day,

And restelees travayleth ay,

And steleth from us prively,

That to us seemeth sykerly

That it in one point dwelleth ever,

And certes, it ne resteth never,

But goth so faste, and passeth ay,

That ther nys man that thynke may

What tyme that now present is --

Asketh at these clerkes this;

For er men thynke it redily

Thre tymes ben ypassed by.

The Tyme, that may not sojourne,

But goth and may never retourne,

As water that downe renneth ay,

But never droppe retourne may.

There may nothyng as Tyme endure,

Metal nor erthely creature,

For al thing it fret and shal.

The Tyme, eke, that chaungeth al,

And al doth waxe and fostred be,

And al thyng distroyeth he.

The Tyme that eldeth our auncestours

And eldeth kynges and emperours,

And that us al shal overcomen

Er that Dethe us shal have nomen.

The Tyme that hath al in welde

To elden folk had maad hir elde . . . 

ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE, lines 369-396

Fisher's COMPLETE POETRY AND PROSE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER, second edition, p. 587

Could this be a contributing source for Tolkien's Time riddle? I think it v. likely, given the bits about "iron" and "king" and "devours". And we have a strong connection between Tolkien and Chaucer, in that JRRT spent several years putting together a Chaucer anthology, THE CLARENDON CHAUCER, which wd have made a nice companion volume to the Tolkien/Gordon SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT and Sisam FOURTEENTH CENTURY VERSE AND PROSE (to wh. Tolkien contributed).* But the passage lacks too many elements (stone, town, mountain), I think, to have been the main or only source.

So: not the crown jewel we've been looking for, but an addition, I think, to the pool of time-riddles and time-poems and time-characterizations.

--John R.
just finished: Joseph Pearce's book on THE HOBBIT
current reading: Edward Rice's biography of Captain Richard Burton





*Lewis's work on THE ROMANCE OF THE ROSE, while significant, came too late to have influenced Tolkien